posh-goofiness
Well-known member
Your point being?
Five minutes of hate news
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Bear Ribs
Well-known member
Right, there's absolutely no chance those companies exert any influence whatsoever, that'd be crazy, just like there's no such thing as a car cartel at all and they certainly don't form an oligopoly, which I'll note the usual suspects have claimed upthread as facts in support of nonsensical beliefs. Do you also think the WEF isn't influencing anything in any way or applying undue power either?
It's the standard fallback position of people who are driven by ideology instead of facts:
"That doesn't count because [insert excuse here]"
True Communism has never been tried and companies would never engage in anti-competitive behavior and give consumers perfect information to judge with if it weren't for those dastardly government regulations.
... I never said they wouldn't (they obviously have). I did say that there's an incentive to cheat on cartels (there is, and there's a long history of people doing so. The customer is still screwed, just less so). I'm also fine with laws against this, as I have said repeatedly. I did point out a problem in the example you gave me, but then you gave me more evidence, of the sort that isn't vulnerable to the objection I made. But overall, yeah, good point.
Still, I don't see the problem with the $18/month. If they are colluding, that's the problem. Stopping the $18/month won't actually address the core issue, but instead be a permanent bandaid on a temporary injury. Or, if they miraculously aren't colluding, then the $18/month is also fine. Investigate to look for price fixing.
As for the index fund objection, Honestly, I'm with you here @Bear Ribs . That isn't good. If index funds could only hold non-voting shares, then I wouldn't have an issue. But there's a clear incentive for ETF's to encourage both to act in collaborative ways without even technically having inter company collaboration. Simply vote to have one company focus on overseas, and another at home, for example. It would also neatly solve the ESG scoring problem.
mrttao
Well-known member
That is not how it works.
Higher octaine means it has additives that prevents it from spontanously igniting due to pressure (incidentally pressure ignition is how diesel engines work by design, which is cool).
This higher pressure tolerance allows for an engine that operates at higher pressure, thus getting higher horsepower. It is for muscle cars mostly. Although supposedly it can also be done to reduce emissions in a price inefficient manner (pay a lot more to save a small amount of emissions)
If you fuel your car with an octane below what it needs, then instead of fully compressing the cylinder and then igniting via a spark plug, the partially compressed cylinder will pressure ignite the air-fuel mixture. Each time this happen you introduce significant wear and tear unto your engine. Drastically shortening its lifespan
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I can live with car companies having two brands. Usually one is the luxury brand. GM and Volkswagen however need to be broken up. Probably FCA as wellWow. You never cease finding some way to nitpick exact words or quibble about minor details instead of addressing the argument.
Nine Automobile Parts Manufacturers and Two Executives Agree to Plead Guilty to Fixing Prices on Automobile Parts Sold to U.S. Car Manufacturers and Installed in U.S. Cars
Nine Japan-based companies and two executives have agreed to plead guilty and to pay a total of more than $740 million in criminal fines for their roles in separate conspiracies to fix the prices of more than 30 different products sold to U.S. car manufacturers and installed in cars sold in the...www.justice.gov
Cartel Fined For Price-Fixing Volkswagen Cars
The seven cartel members had fixed the prices of new Volkswagen cars for years Keystone / Filip Singer </span> A group of Volkswagen dealers in smenafn.com
Car buyers could get compensation after claims of price fixing by shipping companies | Auto Express
Class-action lawsuit claims dealers and buyers were overcharged due to price-fixing cartel of five car-shipping companieswww.autoexpress.co.uk
VW's truckmaker Scania fined 880 mln euros for price fixing
Swedish truckmaker Scania was hit with an 880 million euro ($1 billion) fine by the EU on Wednesday for taking part in a 14-year price fixing cartel, boosting the total fine for the firms involved to a record 3.8 billion euros.www.reuters.com
Yes, they cooperated to cheat customers by price fixing as well. That should really go without saying, the notion that a cartel is going to cooperate to defraud the government and lie to customers for decades while scrupulously protecting prices and the free market is wishful thinking on an unbelievable scale. I cannot imagine the kind of logical leap and ideological blinders required to think that would be the case.
Cartels never behave the way you're suggesting. They have no incentive to cheat and every incentive to cooperate. And they came up with a logical counter to the antiquated idea that they will cheat each other a long time ago. They own each other.
But that infographic is only the tip of the iceberg. Ford and GM aren't shown as connected, f'rex. And on paper, they aren't.
Who owns Ford?
Ford Motor Co Stock Ownership - Who Owns Ford Motor Co in 2024? | WallStreetZen
www.wallstreetzen.com
Who owns General Motors?
General Motors Co Stock Ownership - Who Owns General Motors Co in 2024? | WallStreetZen
Holy smokes, the lists are nearly identical. There's some variation to be sure but the number of names on both lists is huge and they thus have a powerful incentive to cooperate because even beyond that infographic, the big companies at the top of the pyramid are mostly owned by the same people.
mrttao
Well-known member
If they want to have multiple brands they should disclose who owns both.
Something like "Hyundai KIA" rather than just calling it KIA.
mrttao
Well-known member
Yes, but this was specifically an example he brought up. That its ok to sell lead paint so long as it is honestly labeled so that it is entirely on the head of the buyer how he uses it.
The problem is, the buyer is not going to be "DIY Joe", it is going to be "McScumbag 2022 Inc. We paint your house with the best products on the market" who will dissolve (so there is nobody to sue) at the end of the year and then open a new company called McScumbag 2023 next year.
bintananth
behind a desk
A higher octane rating means that the gasoline is harder to ignite and allows for higher compression ratios. If it ignites before its supposed to you've got detonations instead of smooth combustion. That's what you're describing and those will quickly rip a piston engine to shreds from the inside.
EDIT: JP-7 - what the SR-71 used - was inert enough that you could theoretically drop a lit tortch into a pool of it without starting a bonfire. It had to be that inert because at the SR-71's cruising speed air friction made things so hot that normal jet fuels would just boil away.
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Agent23
Ни шагу назад!
My point being that they are investment vehicles that charge a very small percentage to enable average people to buy the whole index without having to go out and buy it themselves.
The index funds are basically part of almost every westerner's retirement nest egg, retirement, and other savings mechanism.
In theory they should own the stock the same way the post office owns your parcels.
Now, some people like the swine running Black Rock are using the proxy power to push green and other shit, but the next crash will probably fix that.
Of course, you don't. It is only wrong when the government does it, and not daddy big business. They are selling you a damaged product that requires you to pay them constantly to keep it maintained...that sounds like a scam to me.
But, it is a bad thing. It is another step towards what the WEF want, us owning nothing and being "happy".
Yes, and that is because there are hundreds if not thousands of years of law and tradition- precedent if you will that limit your rights.
Easement. And that is a different kettle of fish. It is one of those rights/limitations of rights that evolved over the course of civilization, because it was needed/socially conducive. Forcing people to pay to use their own property is neither needed nor it is socially conducive. It is just plain greed, and greed according to most moral teachers is not a good.
bintananth
behind a desk
Crossing state lines is probably why those of us in the peanut gallery even know about this case. Indiana ain't abortion friendly.
Terthna
Professional Lurker
In other words, you're arguing that instead of treating the symptoms, we should focus entirely on curing the disease. Now, you won't see me argue that we shouldn't try to cure it, but that's easier said than done; and in the meantime, those symptoms aren't going to go away on their own. We should be doing both; but right now we're doing neither, and it's only a matter of time until our immune systems (i.e. people rejecting their scams; which, despite your insistence to the contrary, selling a subscription to a physical good you've already paid for is) fail to keep the disease at bay.
It would absolutely be a scam, if they didn't tell you about it straight up. But they did. It was bought with full knowledge of what was wrong with it, so it's not a scam. A scam implies lying. The buyer consented to this with full knowledge. Who are you and I to nanny state over the consumer, and tell him he's being scammed, and he's not allowed to spend his money on this car?
The reason why government is always wrong is because they never ask for consent. The corporation is, so it's not inherently wrong no matter what it does. It could be wrong, if it lied, or forced you to buy it, or colluded with another company. But without those exterior things, this isn't wrong.
Just because a bad person wants X doesn't necessarily make X bad. Kneejerk reactions like this are a problem, as they lead to bad places. Remember, every law enacted will have a bad consequence. Guaranteed. There's simply no such thing as a free lunch.
And also, it was already pushed back by US consumers, without government's help.
No. those aren't 'limited rights'. Those are property rights that one party signed over to the other party. No ones rights have been limited by some third party such as the 'greater good', 'civilization' or 'precedent'. One party sold/leased some of their rights to another party for money. That's straight up property rights.
Now do governments frequently step in and interefere with these with bullshit like the eviction moratorium? Yes, but that is a violation of property rights and the willing agreement between two parties.
It's not a limitation on a right though, it's actually a property right in and of itself. It's a right to use land that you do not own.
This isn't even a symptom though. Or, more accurately, there's no evidence of collusion on this point, so there's no evidence it's a symptom of something. I'm all for punishing the guilty, but I need to know they are guilty first, and have hard evidence for it.
On top of this, there's little limiting principle behind regulating how things are priced, and that seems perilously close to regulating prices themselves. And every regulation of price is always awful. So just be aware that there are multiple competing problems going around, and the best you'll achieve by banning this is only a trade-off. This will cause harm somewhere, as there are no free lunches.
It simply isn't. Again, a scam implies lying. There were no lies. It's just a shit product, and people are allowed to sell shit products, and the free (ish) US market dealt with the shit problem and forced the company to give up here. I don't see the issue, I don't see a scam.
ParadiseLost
Well-known member
I'm iffy on patents even existing, but I can see the argument for them, as there is something to be said for ownership of an original idea. But patent trolls usually don't have original ideas, and there's almost always prior art to handle them. I think there should have to be a stronger showing in order to be awarded a patent.
So no, for the vast majority of such patent trolling laws, but I (probably, haven't put a huge amount of thought into this) do accept that patents are okay, and hence lawsuits for infringing on real patents (i.e. ones based on an original, new, and significant idea).
bintananth
behind a desk
Wierd thing about patents: when applying for one you have to explain exactly what you did so that the patent office can confirm that it's an original idea.
Once the patent expires anyone who wants to copy what you did can because "how to do it" is both public record and public domain.
Bear Ribs
Well-known member
So I want to parse what you just said. Are you admitting you made an objection you knew was false at the time just because you could? Or did you genuinely believe that a cartel that was shown to be lying to customers in the first set of citations was not colluding against and scamming customers in the process of lying to them?
What you consider standards of evidence are bats, especially since you never post citations or proof for any of your claims and make everybody else do all the work. In this very thread, you've gone from "They're not an oligopoly" to "They're not a colluding Cartel" to "They're only colluding about government and lying to customers, but aren't proven to collude against consumers about prices" to "You can't prove they're specifically colluding on this exact issue." Presumably, you'll eventually move to "You can't prove 100% of all car companies are colluding on this exact issue right at this specific second" or some such. Your standards demand 100% omniscient knowledge including foreknowledge before you'll accept anything.
Edit: Perhaps an analogy will help clarify this point. You're in the position of a prosecutor in a self-defense case, who's claiming that this isn't valid self-defense, the homeowner couldn't have known that the Axe-murderer who was chopping through their front door was there to murder them. Incidentally, the Axe-murderer has already murdered hundreds of people over the past three decades by chopping through their front doors and then killing them, but you demand the homeowner prove that the Axe-murderer was planning murder in this specific case and now just robbery or perhaps misdemeanor tresspassing.
Agent23
Ни шагу назад!
Patents and copyright IMHO should be a thing, but they should be short duration, like at most 15 - 20 years.
The author's life + 50/70 years for publishing for instance is IMHO a bad idea.
I think that sunk costs for innovation need to be covered, and patent protection helps with that, but if the patent's length is too long that will discourage derivatives.
Also, IP having an excessively long life keeps garbage like Disney alive and helps the likes of GW and paramount fucking over fan creators.
The whole idea of passive index investing is that it is a simple way to buy up the whole market, index funds interfering with the operations of the companies they own is IMHO even worse than institutionalized stock picking dome on the basis of technical analysis.
They aren't merely deforming the market, they are deforming the economy, and those index fund managers have even less skin in the game than hedge-fund managers.
They get to hijack the voting power of the shares of their customers and since they are fucking the whole market it becomes harder for natural competition to arise and fix their nonsense.
IMHO somebody has to sue them for breech of fiduciary duty duty.
First, I absolutely believe every company would join a cartel if they could get away with it. I also think they are prone to cheating, which is somewhat self defeating.
In regards to this, you hadn't presented evidence of a relevant cartel yet. You are making a positive claim (saying there is something). So I waited for evidence that such a thing existed. As for looking up evidence, I do look up evidence and present it, just not all the time every time, because, well, I'm really busy right now. For example, in this thread, I did actually look up what happened in this case (I just noticed I forgot to link it, apologies. Here it is.:BMW does about-face, drops CarPlay annual subscription requirement), which is where I got that the market solved it.
As for my position here changing, I have been arguing that the car market was a free market. And you have some definite legit points that there are real problems with it. So yeah, I'm fine conceding that it's a lot worse than I thought it was. I still could see the used car market keeping them in check, but that's still pretty bad and endemic and frequent. My position changed because you made good arguments. Congrats.
My real, original argument was that the $18/month thing is morally fine to offer, ought to be legally fine to offer, but something I dislike. It's sold with everyone having full knowledge of what they are buying and how much they are paying. I'd be very against hidden fees and sudden price hikes, I view them as close to fraud, if not just straight up fraud. "You didn't read the fine print, get fucked" ain't good enough.
But this quite simply isn't evidence of more collusion. It's just a company trying to get more money.
mrttao
Well-known member
That is how it used to be.
Now adays you don't. You can patent the most banal shit and even abstract ideas.